The Palace Guard (5 page)

“Well, of all the—I never heard—wait till I—”

Sarah quickly poured Mrs. Tawne another cup of coffee and watched with anxiety while she gulped it down. The woman was an alarming color now.

“Mrs. Tawne, you mustn’t let your work upset you so.”

“Upset me? Why, that idiot!” The artist fought herself under control, gradually fading to a less apoplectic shade of red. “Pulling a ridiculous schoolboy trick like that while poor old Joe was lying dead in the garden. Robbers my foot! Joe lost his balance and fell, that was all. I’m not surprised. I’ve caught my own brother Jimmy more than once hanging over that slippery balustrade to look at the clock, and bawled him out for it good and proper I can tell you. Don’t let me catch you doing such a thing, Brooks.”

“I’m no clock watcher,” said Kelling stiffly, “and neither was Witherspoon.”

“I didn’t say Joe was watching the clock,” she huffed. “I said he was looking at it. I only wish it had been that imbecile Brown.”

Mrs. Sorpende, with her ineffable tact, channeled the talk into a more refined vein. “You are both highly privileged to be entrusted with the protection and preservation of priceless art treasures,” she cooed.

“I feel the responsibility keenly,” Brooks assured her.

Mrs. Sorpende arranged the fall of lace over a plump and comely wrist. “One feels that Mr. Fitzroy must be a penetrating judge of character.”

Cousin Brooks edged still closer to the billows of mauve Georgette. Dolores Tawne finally realized what was happening.

“Well, I’ve got to be getting along,” she snapped. “Early to bed for us working gals. Thanks for the supper, Mrs. Kelling. You coming, Brooks?”

It was a struggle, but the Code of the Kellings prevailed. Sarah rewarded Brooks for good behavior by expressing a cordial wish that he wouldn’t be such a stranger. Mrs. Sorpende added an intimation that she was always at home in the evenings. Brooks gave his word of honor that he would indeed not be such a stranger and nobody present doubted his sincerity.

“It was so nice you could come, Mrs. Tawne,” said Sarah. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow at three.”

“What? Oh yes. Tomorrow at three.”

Dolores and Brooks both looked rather downcast as they left, though no doubt for different reasons.

“P
ERSONALLY,” SAID SARAH, “I
found the salt of the earth a trifle on the peppery side.”

She was doing the dishes, having complimented Mrs. Sorpende fulsomely on the truly delectable meal and shooed her off to be gracious to Professor Ormsby in the library. Mariposa wasn’t back from her relatives’ yet. Charles was down in the basement playing Bach on the stereo, for Charles was a young man of highbrow tastes. Max Bittersohn was ostensibly in his own basement quarters but had in fact lingered to dry the dishes for Sarah.

“A highly combustible lady,” he agreed. “I wonder why she went into fits when I told her about Brown.”

“Perhaps she felt any burglar should ask her permission before slugging a guard, though I got the impression she didn’t believe his yarn any more than you did.”

“No, she must know her Brown better than she does her Romneys. Unless she’s well aware the painting is a fake and won’t admit it for fear of undermining the museum’s prestige. How come your family hasn’t pointed out that little discrepancy ages ago?”

“The Kellings and the Madam didn’t get along.” Sarah told him about the fiasco at the opening: “So if anybody had said anything after that, it would have been taken for another piece of cattiness. Anyway, none of us ever went back. Except for Brooks I expect I’m the first Kelling to have set foot in the place since that opening soiree. And Brooks wouldn’t know about the Romney because his mother had a fight with Aunt Emma about Rudy Vallee back around 1928 and they never spoke after that, so naturally he’s never visited Aunt Emma. Anyway, she probably wouldn’t have asked him because Brooks is looked upon as a bit of a renegade.”

“I wondered what a Kelling was doing giving bird calls at kids’ birthday parties.”

“Laying them in the aisles, I don’t doubt. Brooks can be great fun, especially with children. He’s the original rolling stone, though I expect he’s fairly mossy as far as money goes. His father cut him off without a penny when he refused to go into the family wool business after college, but Brooks had a little trust fund from some great-aunt or somewhere. Kellings are always inheriting odd bits from here and there. Anyway, Brooks’s father died of apoplexy the day Roosevelt got nominated for a fourth term and his widow decided to become a female tycoon. She ran the business into the ground in about six months and skipped off to Zurich with whatever she could salvage before the receivers moved in, so it was a stroke of luck for Brooks that he’d been written off the books. Otherwise he’d have been stuck for whatever he had, I suppose. As it is, Brooks has managed to live more or less as he pleases. I’ve always been sorry not to see more of him, but my own father held it against Brooks that he didn’t step in and rescue his father’s firm and I think Dolph still does, though in fact Brooks couldn’t have done a thing. His mother must have been another Dolores Tawne from what I’ve heard about her. Maybe that’s why he keeps getting himself involved with female bullies. Anyway, Brooks never liked Aunt Caroline and I’m afraid he thought Alexander rather spineless, though he used to show up once in a while collecting funds to build homes for indigent bluebirds and so forth. I have a hunch Brooks didn’t come to see me after Alexander died because he was out of town at the time and didn’t see the papers, so he’s been under the impression I was left a rich widow. Now that he knows I’m flat broke, he’ll no doubt be camping on the doorstep offering to put on the screens and fix the dripping faucets.”

“So let him. Where’s he living now?”

“I forgot to ask. Some rooming house, I expect. He moves a lot. His landladies are always indigent widows like me and he gets to suspecting they have designs on him, which I’m sure they do.”

“I hope he doesn’t move on till I get him to find out whether Joe Witherspoon had his fly zipped when he fell.”

“Why, Mr. Bittersohn, you do bring up the most thought-provoking subjects of conversation.”

“I thought you wanted to be one of the gang.”

“I do, honestly, and I see exactly what you’re getting at. So you intend to pursue this affair at the Madam’s even though you haven’t been engaged or commissioned or whatever the term is?”

“Try hired. Sure, why not? The trustees can’t put me on the case till they know they’ve got troubles, can they? I’m like those lawyers who chase ambulances. They never know if they’re going to get a bloody nose or a nice, juicy insurance settlement out of it, but they give it the old school try just in case. Where do these cups go?”

“Leave them on the counter. We’ll want them for breakfast. Oh, dear, there’s the doorbell. I’d better go.”

But Charles was already leaping up the basement stairs, snapping on his prefabricated tie and buttoning his coat en route. By the time he got to the door he was Mr. Hudson personified. A moment later he was back in the kitchen, stiff as a Celluloid collar. “A Mr. Fieringer to see Mr. Bittersohn and—er—his beautiful lady friend.”

“I expect he means me,” said Sarah, blushing slightly. “Mr. Bittersohn and I were at Mr. Fieringer’s concert this afternoon. How did he know where to find us, I wonder, if he couldn’t even remember my name?”

“Asked somebody,” said Bittersohn, “I told you Nick knows everybody.”

“I wonder what he wants. Charles, are Mrs. Sorpende and the others still in the library?”

“Yes, madam.”

“Then you’d better show Mr. Fieringer up to the studio. Take him a liqueur if he wants one and tell him we’ll be right along.”

Sarah had planned to use Aunt Caroline’s former boudoir on the second floor as a workroom. However, she’d soon found that she required a private sitting room since Mrs. Gates was now sleeping in the drawing room and the boarders were using the library as a common room, and she couldn’t very well hold tête-à-têtes in her own bedroom without giving rise to comment.

Mary and Dolph had contributed two charming bergères and a love seat out of Great-uncle Frederick’s overstuffed mansion in Chestnut Hill, where they now lived. Anora Protheroe had given a Tiffany lamp and, rather touchingly, Charlotte Hunnewell Lamson’s charming conté crayon portrait of Anora herself as a younger and far handsomer woman. A grateful client had given Max Bittersohn one of Philip Hale’s Beacon Hill tea parties and he’d passed the painting on to Sarah, saying it was more her type of thing than his, which was certainly true, so she couldn’t have refused if she’d cared to and needless to say she didn’t. Sarah’s drawing table stood over under the window. Her supplies, favorite books, and a few treasures were neatly housed in white-painted cabinets and shelves Mariposa’s cousin the carpenter had built and Mariposa’s cousin the painter had finished in white enamel. It was now as dainty a sitting room as any lady could wish and the impresario looked grossly out of place in it.

As the two entered he bounced to his feet. “I hope I’m not interrupting something.” He made it sound like a dirty joke.

“Not at all,” said Sarah. “My butler gave me to understand that you wished to see both Mr. Bittersohn and myself. Otherwise he would have shown you to Mr. Bittersohn’s own quarters. Downstairs,” she added with enough emphasis to make Bittersohn’s lips twitch. “If you prefer to talk privately with him, I’ll excuse myself.”

“Who would deprive himself of the company of so beautiful a lady? Eh, Bittersohn?”

“What’s on your mind, Nick?” Bittersohn replied testily. “I’m rather tied up just now.”

“Maxie, is this kind of you? I stop by to wish good health and long life to my friend and his beautiful lady and I get the bum’s rush.”

“Sit down and shut up, Nick,” sighed Bittersohn. “Mrs. Kelling is my landlady and she’ll charge me extra if I notice what she looks like. Oddly enough, though, we were talking about you a while back. Weren’t we, Mrs. Kelling?”

Sarah couldn’t recall that they had, but she nodded. “Yes, with Mrs. Tawne.”

“Mrs. Tawne? You know Dolores?” Fieringer was surprised, and not pleasantly.

“She was here to supper. My cousin brought her.”

“So? It’s a small world. A wonderful woman, Dolores, the salt of the earth. But thick in the ankles.”

“How about the head?” asked Bittersohn.

The fat man blinked. “Not there, no. Dolores is a smart cookie. Very capable woman.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Why? How do I know why? The good Lord gave her brains maybe to make up for that face. Is it permitted that I smoke, gracious landlady?”

The little china dish on the table beside you is an ashtray,” Sarah replied, wondering why the impresario was sweating so.

“What does Mrs. Tawne do around the Madam’s?” Bittersohn persisted.

“She sticks her finger in the pies. She dusts the priceless you should excuse the expression art objects. She makes little repairs when everything falls apart in the dampness from that imbecile fountain. She nags her poor halfwit brother into eternal vigilance over the moths in the tapestries when he would rather go and be happy in his spiritual home, Paddy O’Malley’s Bar.”

“I trust she won’t try to make things difficult for Cousin Brooks,” said Sarah.

“Brooks? Brooks Kelling? Could he be your cousin you speak of? Little Kelling the framer?”

“Does Brooks do framing? I didn’t know that.”

“Sure. Tawne paints, Kelling frames. Two hearts that beat as one. Why should Dolores give Kelling a hard time? He isn’t around much anyway.”

“He will be for a while. He’s agreed to fill in for that guard who was killed this afternoon falling from the third floor until the trustees can hire a replacement. Mrs. Tawne acted rather miffed about it.”

So, oddly enough, did Fieringer. “Dolores didn’t tell me.”

“She didn’t know herself until Brooks happened to mention it while we were at the table. She was furious because Mr. Fitzroy asked him without consulting her first.”

“She would be.” Having taken only a couple of nervous puffs, Fieringer stubbed out his cigarette with elaborate care. “Did she have anything to say about Joe?”

“She thinks he fell over the balustrade while he was trying to see the clock and Brown faked the robbery as a bid for attention,” Bittersohn answered for Sarah.

“And you, my friend?”

“Me?” Max Bittersohn’s gray-blue eyes were wide with innocence. “You’ve got it all figured out, Nick. You told us this afternoon what happened.”

“Maxie, don’t try to kid old Nick. I know your mind. Somebody dies, Bittersohn says, Who done it?” Fieringer laughed but his eyes were watchful slits in their nests of lard. “Is it not so, gracious landlady?”

“You’ve known him longer than I have,” Sarah said in what she hoped was a noncommittal tone. “Are you closely associated with the Madam’s also, Mr. Fieringer?”

“Call me Nick. Everybody calls me Nick. In a way, yes.” The impresario lit another cigarette and waved it around like a baton. “I organize all the concerts at a stipend that pays for my bad habit of smoking but lucky for me they give the matches free thrown in at time of purchase. The concerts give me anyway opportunity to expose my fine young artists before the discerning public. Tell me honest, Max, you think the cellist has promise?”

“The kid’s going to be okay, Nick. Give her another year.” By which time, his shrug implied, she might with luck have taken up the kazoo instead of the cello. “How well do you know C. Edwald Palmerston?”

“See, I told you.” Nick Fieringer turned to Sarah, flinging his arms wide and almost burning a hole with his cigarette in the new curtains she’d scrimped for out of her housekeeping budget. “Already he’s investigating. Never mind is there anything to investigate, Bittersohn investigates. Max, my friend, I confess all. It was Fitzroy pushed Joe because Joe makes weewee in the fountain. How does Fitzy manage when on Sunday he teaches Bible lessons to forty little angel boys? You tell me, my friend. You’re the detective.”

“I asked you a question,” said Bittersohn.

Nick threw up his pudgy hands. “All right, I did it! I killed Joe because he had a tin ear. Or maybe Bernie did it because Joe drank up his rubbing alcohol on him. Or maybe Dolores Tawne is right and Joe fell and Max Bittersohn should investigate how beautiful is his landlady who has known him so short a time and might like to know him better, eh? Lay off, my friend. Here are only a few old guards and one fat impresario trying to make a lousy living.”